Hello Ward 8 Neighbours,
A two-year pilot project to license rental landlords in Wards 1, 8 and 14 has been approved by planning committee, setting the stage to start the pilot project.
For more details, please continue reading below…
On August 6, Councillors Danko and Maureen Wilson (Ward 1) issued a press release where they stated they were jointly committed to immediately implement the proposed Rental Housing Licensing by-law with a full cost recovery fee so that all expenses are paid by landlords and not City taxpayers. Originally, City staff had moved to delay the implementation until 2023.
At the August 10 planning committee meeting, members voted unanimously in favour of the motion raised by councillors Danko and Wilson to start the Rental Housing Licensing Pilot project this coming fall.
The pilot project by-law will require rental business owners (landlords) to licence their rental units. Licenses will only be granted if the rental units fully comply with the Ontario building code, fire code, electrical code, parking requirements, room size and layout and all other regulations.
In order to be licensed, landlords will be required to submit their properties to interior and exterior inspections by the City (currently, the City cannot enforce violations unless inspectors are invited into a unit). The total estimated cost as approved by City Council on August 13, 2021 is estimated to cost $2,147,055 with no net levy impact based on the assumption that 2,000 rental units will be licensed annually during the pilot project.
According to the staff report from September 21, upon the adoption of the Rental Housing By-law, staff will begin a phased-in transition and implementation plan by using best practices from municipalities that have already implemented a rental unit licensing program. This means that an Education and Awareness Campaign will be used to answer business owner questions and concerns.
The report goes on to state that staff anticipate being able to begin accepting Rental Unit Applications starting in April 2022 using a phased-in geographic approach. A final compliance date for property owners to obtain a licence prior to enforcement will be set for various dates in Fall 2022. The exact dates will be included in the education materials generated for the property owners and
tenants and will be reported to Council in a six-month update report.
The pilot will also require new internal license processes and materials to be created and made available for licensees and tenants, and the awareness campaign will start in January 2022.
Full details on the Rental Licensing By-law can be accessed here (starting on page 110): https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=284727
To ensure that both tenants and landlords have an opportunity to ask important questions on the by-law, the Ward 8 office is planning on hosting a virtual Q & A session with city staff in the near future. We will update you once we have a confirmed date.
Questions or concerns?
If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact our office here.
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